I’ve had problems receiving packages shipped via UPS in the past. I come home to find a yellow tag on my apartment door because I wasn’t waiting there to sign for the package whenever a driver showed up. I’ve left notes for the drivers, tried talking to the drivers and I’ve called the 800 number on the tag and spoken to customer service representatives many times. I have tried to explain that I can’t be at home to sign for packages and that I want them left at my door. I live in a safe secure building with interior doors. Leaving packages shouldn’t be a problem and it isn’t for other carriers. With only one exception the drivers and Customer Service reps have shown no consideration, concern or understanding whatsoever and have acted like complete jerks as well. I’ve simply been told that the driver can’t leave packages without a signature. Occasionally they have tried to lie to me, saying that the person sending the package had specified that a signature was required. It’s actually a UPS policy that they spout like mindless automatons and have been completely inflexible about when I have tried to reason with them. UPS representatives have told me that if I can’t be there to sign for the package I should make other arrangements.in effect, refusing to acknowledge their unwillingness to deliver the package or the inconvenience to me - implying that the problem was somehow my fault not theirs.
On Friday December 22nd a UPS driver brought the Christmas package that I was expecting from my family to my door but didn’t leave it.instead, he left a yellow tag marked signature required for delivery and that UPS would attempt to redeliver the package on Tuesday the 26th - the day after Christmas.
I called the 800 number on the tag and spoke to a customer service representative, pointing out the irony and stupidity of the situation. The person I spoke to suggested that I should have had the package delivered to where I work. When I told her I was not allowed to receive personal packages where I work she had no response and once again spouted UPS policy. She then told me that I could drive to the UPS centre at 8350 Murray Drive in Middleton on Saturday the 23rd and pick up the package myself - it would be waiting there for me.
Saturday morning I tried to find the address but couldn’t. I tried to call the 800 number again but couldn’t get through to a person. I tried looking in the phone book but could only find their 800 number - there were no addresses or other telephone numbers listed. It was only after stopping at a gas station and asking if anyone knew where the UPS centre was, that I was finally able to find it.
I assumed that I would walk in, give someone my yellow tag, pick up my package, celebrate Christmas and go on about my life. I ended up waiting for more than an hour in their cold customer waiting area with as many as a dozen people in the same or similar situation while the UPS employees tried to find my package. The main person I dealt with was sarcastic and smug; he seemed to be holding back laughter as I got more and more irritated and angry. He suggested several scenarios that could have happened and places where my package might be. One of those scenarios was that the package might have been put on a truck and taken back out in spite of the fact that I was told that I would be able to pick it up.in the end when I asked him where my package was, he said “I don’t know” and when I asked what I was supposed to do, he said “I don’t know.”
This wasn’t an issue of the address on the package being bad or wrong, this wasn’t an issue of the package not being shipped in time. The package was actually brought to my door and then taken away because some heartless asshole in a brown shirt cared more about following company policy than delivering a package that might be very important to someone. My Christmas gifts sit in a box somewhere at UPS because they wouldn’t deliver them in the first place and now have lost them.
As I was leaving, I told the UPS representative that I didn’t mean to take this out on him but that he should let his superiors, or anyone who cared, know that I would never do business with UPS again or any company that uses UPS. I also told him that I intended to contact the Better Business Bureau, that I intended to send this message to everyone in my address book, that I was going to find any opinions or ratings service on the internet and give UPS the lowest possible rating. I immediately regretted trying to be nice, compassionate or considerate to him at all though, because he just continued to smirk, act as if it was all some kind of joke and not even respond.
At this point there is no satisfactory resolution possible. The package from my family will not be found or delivered until well after Christmas if at all.
I know that Christmas is not supposed to be about gifts but I wish all of these fine employees of UPS could know how it feels to wake up Christmas morning alone without a single gift from their family in expression of their love or wishes for happiness.
If you have received packages from UPS without any problems, consider yourself lucky. I will never ship anything with UPS again, I won’t order anything online or through the mail if the company uses UPS, I ask that anyone who ships anything to me in the future does not use UPS.
I am sending this to everyone in my address book and anyone else I might think of later. I strongly urge all of you to reconsider shipping anything with UPS - there are a lot of other options, even the U.S. Postal Service would be a better choice.
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